I began with your ankle, holding your heel in my hand and ladling warm water that spilled over your arches and down between your toes, before softly splashing into the wooden bowl. I rubbed the steel cable of the Achilles tendon, the two small mountains of the ankle, the dull pad of the heel, then washed the sole, the foot’s white underbelly, and the shy instep, tender as the palm of your hand. My fingers scrubbed your modest toes, my thumb rubbed each nail, pouring clean water now and again from the ladle. I don’t know how Jesus did it, but like him I was kneeling, and when I was finished washing your left foot and drying it with a towel, I set your foot very gently down, then turned to wash your right.

She winds the skeins into balls, the center thread unwinding like a cutlass in reverse. She lotions her hands with lanolin scented with lavender and sits to cast-on the waistband of the back that will cover his shoulders, his spine when he bends to draw up a rope. She plans out cables as thick as rigging, diamonds that are sure to make his love for her rich and clear.The diamonds will be filled with moss stitches, dense and soft. Between the rows, a honeycomb to remind him of her sweetness, the taste of her mouth when she’s had her tea, the golden light that floods his eyes when he enters her. She plans to knit blackberries and bobbles into the sleeves, basketweave at the base to catch all the childish giggles of summer days, circus ponies, picnics, the blanket spread under the apple tree’s June branches. Each stitch a prayer, the Trinity repeated in the blackberry, the halo in the comb, the touch of her fingers a blessing, a begging.

Gliders Between tours of duty that took my father around the world and down into hell, he stole three weeks R&R in Florida, needing comfort and consolation for all his eyes had seen. A pilot of C-47s flying the Hump in the Burma Theater, he was then assigned to the Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base in North Carolina, the world’s largest glider pilot training program. The gliders were not like the small sleek gliders flown by amateurs today, but huge unpowered aircraft. The gliders could hold a dozen troops, jeeps, mortars, bazookas, machine guns, and ammunition. My father in his C-47 towed the gliders down the runway and into the air, where young pilots practiced tank hunting or nighttime landings. Or more dangerously, my father would swing down low, like the chariot that came for Elijah, and snatch the gliders off the ground with trick wires, gliders that in real battle would be loaded with wounded men now caught up in the air to safety. Perhaps in the great bird of his plane my father felt like the Lord, rapturing his people. Once, Dad spoke of a day when his practice flight had been scrubbed. A second crew, his buddies from the tarpaper barracks, took his plane up instead. My father remembered standing on the airfield, helpless as he looked into the sky and saw the engines smoke and fail, the heavy plane careening down, the great explosion. After the war, the base shut down and quickly became a ghost town. But before the base closed, my father met my mother, a secretary who typed the papers for soldiers headed to North Africa or Normandy or Italy. The two slow-danced together at the base club on a Saturday night in August.

A Tribute To The Founder

Chris' dream was to feature and support artists all over the world. So in place of donations, please visit the EIL Art Store and shop items by our featured artists. Your support is extremely appreciated.